The Liquid

For cooking paellas, Valencians swear by their hard, lime-rich water. Obsessive cooks even carry water with them when planning to cook paella away from home. Well, the business about hardness or softness of water turns out to be a bit of an old wives’ tale. At least according to my friends the brilliant Michelin-starred Alicantine chef Quique Dacosta and the Valencian rice scientist Santos Ruiz, who are collaborating on an iconoclastic rice cookbook meant to debunk this and other rice-cooking myths.